Demob Happy

My final answer
6/10
In one of my favourite books about India, Rohinton Mistry’s epic ‘A Fine Balance‘, one character says “there is no such thing as an uninteresting life”. Set in part in the vast slums of Mumbai - formerly Bombay - at a critical juncture in the city’s history (the emergency powers introduced by then [...]

[Read more →]

Journey to the ends of the Earth (and back)

9/10
The fifth Paul Theroux travel book I have read (i’ve posted reviews of ‘The Kingdom by the Sea’ and ‘The Old Patagonian Express’ here and here), ‘The Great Railway Bazaar‘ is in fact his first and arguably most rewarding. If you are familiar with Theroux’s writing you [...]

[Read more →]

The Darjeeling feeling
5/10
Wes Anderson’s offbeat style of filmmaking is definitely an acquired taste. Highly stylised - his saturated use of colour borders on the psychedelic - but with seemingly improvised dialogue, it is always hard to know how seriously to take his films. The Darjeeling Ltd epitomises this, combining the kind of tongue-in-cheek [...]

[Read more →]

The Inheritance of literary success
6/10
When Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Booker Prize, the head judge praised “the strength of the book’s humanity”, adding that her mother Anita “will be proud of her”. The fact that Anita Desai was also a Booker shortlisted author who never scooped the big prize, is a [...]

[Read more →]

Indian passages
7/10
E.M Forster’s classic novel is a savage critique of English colonial attitudes towards the Indian ’subject race’ during the British Raj. Having then visited India with his friend Syed Masood - whom this book’s principle character is said to be loosely based on - Forster was well-equipped to expose the hypocrasy and racism of [...]

[Read more →]

Snapshots of the subcontinent
9/10
William Dalrymple’s ‘The Age of Kali’ carries the subtitle ‘Indian Travels and Encounters’ but actually includes writings on Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean island of Reunion (in fact a département of France). It is less a historical analysis in the mold of the brilliant ‘City of Djinns’ but a collection [...]

[Read more →]

A fine book
8/10
Rohinton Mistry is an unusual voice in contemporary literature. His compassion for his characters is evident throughout his writing, going to great lengths to create tangible, likeable subjects. Whereas many other recent booker-shortlisted authors have either tried to radically play with narrative form (David Mitchell) or are ostentatious in the style of their [...]

[Read more →]

Delhi days
9/10
William Dalrymple is probably the best travel writer of his generation, both in his ability to evoke a sense of time and place, and his skill for shedding light on history in an engaging and accessible way. In contrast to his first book, the brilliant ‘In Xanadu’, Dalrymple focuses less on his own experiences [...]

[Read more →]